First Professional Detail in 84 Years: BARN FIND Triumph! | Antique Car Restoration

We found this 1948 car that's been sitting untouched and never professionally detailed for 76 years. And while playing around with it, we found out it's one of the coolest vehicles we've ever worked on. I think it goes up. No, it's a windshield. It's a windshield. No way. This is better than I thought, like by a lot. It's actually kinda comfy, I'm not gonna lie. Brent, you definitely have to try getting in here. I think you're gonna love it. So we were instantly greeted with a surprise. It's huge. Why is he not scared of us? I don't know. Is he just watching? What's up, dude? You're getting evicted today, buddy. This is weird to find a mouse like this. Hopefully, he leaves. That's no mouse. That's my brother. Are we gonna have to evict him? He's gotta go. Why is he just hanging out here? I've never seen them be this chill. I think he's territorial. You know what, I'm gonna give him a nickname. Big Chill. Right under the horn, look at him. Well, you know, he definitely lives in this car. The one behind you, there's one behind you, Mike. It's moving. Oh my gosh. There's a baby mouse right there. There's two. Well, that's just sad. Geez. Well, that's one way to start a video, isn't it? Yeah, we find a lot of dead mice. It's just a little weird when, I don't know, what do you do now, you know? Poor thing, it's gonna die. This thing looks insane. It is quite the quirky car, I'd say. Yeah, this is the most ergh car I've ever seen in my life. Got some real Mondo headlights on it, too, Jesus. Huge headlights. We have fenders that are seriously the most bulbous, rounded fenders I've ever seen. You know, it looks sort of like the old Bugattis do. Like really, really grand looking. I'd say. Got the sweet suicide door. And it's wood, too. I think this is a wood frame car. Well, why would they have glass, right? Looking into the trunk, that's like the weirdest thing I've ever seen in a car. I'm pretty sure this seat's back, that pops up, you can sit there. I'm pretty sure these are like, like you put the top down and you get two more seats in the back. So the two plus two. You just gotta pull it. I don't know, man. You just gotta. He's right. Wow. Look at that. That's gorgeous. I'm still confused as to what the glass is for. I think that must slide out, then. Gotta slide out or seat back like a backrest. I don't know, this thing is very quirky. I know nothing about this, so let's go hunt down the owner and find out more about it. So we are all the way back in New Hampshire with Chase, whose family owned that Corvette that we did a couple weeks ago. And he has a couple more cars for us to do, but I am unsure of what this is. What is this thing, Chase? Yeah, so this, I believe, is a 48 Triumph 1800 model. It's been in our family for over 60 years, I think. It was imported from England. My great-grandfather used to drive it around a lot. I had actually never seen it driven on the road, so. That'd be awesome. This thing looks insane. Like these fenders, the headlights, the whole aesthetic of the car looks nuts. I can't imagine the looks that your grandfather got when he drove down the street in this thing. Apparently, he was a big fan of British cars because right next to it is a Rolls-Royce Wraith. I guess we have to figure out how we're going to drag this out and then move it over to the wash bay where we're going to detail it. But Chase, thanks for having us out again, man. I really appreciate it. This one's going to be a fun one, so let's get to it. So now we need to get the Triumph into the wash bay, which means we have to hook our truck up to it so we can pull it outside. And once it's outside now, for the first time in over 30 years, you can see that thick layer of dust all over it. But I want to ask the question of the video, so leave your answers in the comments below. Are you guys fans of cars of this style? I think they're very cool and very unique looking. I don't know if it's something I would ever want to own personally, but they're definitely fun to look at and play around with. But let me know what you think down below. But with it in place, Mike's going to talk a little bit about the wheels and how we're going to clean them. All right, we just got the Triumph into the garage and these wheels need some dire help. But I found this interesting badge that's on the front and on this side of the Triumph. I guess this might be the old school badge. I've only ever worked on newer Triumphs on their motorcycles specifically, so I'm not too keen on exactly what this badge is or what part of the world it's looking at. If you know more about it, please let me know in the comments. And with that said, first thing I'm going to do is pop these hubcaps off and then get these white walls nice and clean. Quick question. If you could start any business, what would it be? 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These engine bays are super goofy to me. That always means that there's some massive, huge engine in there that takes up all this room, but it only has like 26 horsepower, something super small. So I'm assuming we're gonna see the head here, and then, I don't know, what do you think? It's a 10-cylinder? Well, I already looked this up. Six-cylinder? So I already know. Eight-cylinder. I'm going eight-cylinder. What the heck is that? What the heck? That's exactly what you think it is. That's a 1.8, wait. Wait. It is not. We are wrong. This is a 20TR. This is 2,000. This is 2,000 CCs, 2.0 liter, four-cylinder. Wow, dude. Yeah. Pretty cool. So this is the big motor car. Nice. The other one's an 1,800 CC. Okay. What do you think this has horsepower-wise? Sort of like what you said, like 26 or something like that. You think a Volkswagen Beetle would beat it? That'd be a tough race. What do you think? So I looked up the zero to 60 on this car because I was... Sorry. I don't think it stays. Oh my God. This bends too. This is so weird. Yeah, I got it. This feels so wrong. Go on the other side. What do you want me to do? On the other side? Is there... There's not like a stopping thing. There needs to be... We are idiots. Why can't we figure out how to... How would you work on the engine, then? I looked at the specs on the 1,800 and that bad boy did zero to 60. 22 seconds. In 34.4 seconds. With a bone chilling 75 mile per hour top speed. Oh my God. You guys need to come see this right now. Mike, you can see it from out there. I got you. Ready? Ready for this? There's a little knob here. Ready for this, Brent? Stop it. It's a manual... Oh, it's raining really bad. Wiper. It's really, really bad out, guys. So Mike would just have to sit next to me. I'm like, come on, Mike. We need to get home. He's just... It's like you're playing foosball. So, RJ is in 1949 and he is just gonna be introduced to a hurricane. And we're gonna see how he can fend himself off with this little wiper blade. Ready, dude? Oh no. You're getting me wet! Oh, you're getting wet? Through my leg. My legs are getting wet. Come here, look at this. Now that we've messed around enough, we're gonna go ahead and clean the engine bay and then give the paint a good wash. All right, so now the car is all cleaned up. We're gonna try to open this back up and see what exactly is going on with the back seats of this car. I can't remember what they call these. There's a certain name for the seats that are behind the rag top, or in this case, the vinyl top. If you do know, drop it in the comments below. I can't remember if it's like jump seats or something like that. So, my buddy had an S10 when I was younger and I remember his back seat was a little tiny back seat and it was called a jumper seat. Yeah. So I don't know if back then they called it that. Probably something different. Let us know if you know what these could be called, but they're very silly, small looking seats. I think it goes up. No, it's a windshield. It's a windshield. No way. Yeah, yeah, it has to go more. We go all the way. It has to be. Dude. What the heck? It's a windshield. All right. So a picture of this top down. Let's put the top down. All right. Okay, this is way cooler than I originally thought. I had no idea why there was windows there. It didn't make any sense. But now, I feel like you can't see much though from back there. I don't know. I'm going to try here in a second. Okay, there we go. That's it. There. This is for where your foot would step if you want to get in here. So. Oh boy. Okay. Let me go first. Big dogs getting in. I don't think people in the 40s were as big as you guys. This is great actually. I like this a lot. I don't think RJ is going to have the same opinion. Watch your knee on this. This is just made of sharp. Okay. Hey. Can you put your arm out? We're just chilling. This is better than I thought. Like by a lot. It's actually kind of comfy. I'm not going to lie. Let me tell you, if one of my brothers were in here with me, actually, if my brothers were driving and sitting, shotgun this thing would do zero to 60 in probably four and a half minutes. I don't think it'd get there to be honest with you. But I also think this might be the most unsafe position in a vehicle I've ever been in. If we hit something, you would die. We're smoked. You would die. Well, getting in this wasn't too bad, but I feel like that's the easier of the two movements. I think getting out is harder. That being said, do you want to go first? You want me to go first? We'll do a... I think you have to. I think actually... Oh, it's going to be easier for you? I think you have to get out first. Okay. We're going to do a rate our grace. Who does this more gracefully? Me or RJ? I don't know if I'm going to even do it gracefully. Oh, you're like... Where? Man. You know what? Not that bad. I like this car. I like this car way more than I thought. See? Not too bad actually. It's not that bad. Not too bad. This is a great design. I take it all back. I mean, bad for safety, but other than that, this is fun. Aside from getting in an accident and eating glass. Not too bad. It's sick. These little seats, they're way more comfortable than you would think too. Now we're going to pull the seat out and start cleaning up the interior and the leather. And I think this car is genuine leather, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. Maybe one of you can fill me in on that. All right. So the Triumph is all washed, decontaminated, and now it's time to start polishing. And of course, first things first, we're going to take a look at the paint to see what we're working with. And I'm working with a lot here. It looks like this paint has been massively abused over the years. We have a ton of hard water spotting, chemical etching, oxidation, scratches, you name it. This car has a ton of issues. And so I'm going to try and do a one-step polish to remove as much as I can and see if I can get away with kind of cheating and using a foam pad, a dual action polisher, and light polish. And if that doesn't work, I'm going to have to pull out the big guns and use my rotary and some compound. So we're going to see, we're going to go with the least aggressive method first. And if that doesn't work, we'll move on to the big dog. Okay. So that one-step polish, it did a decent enough job pulling off that oxidation, but we are still left with a ton of mineral deposit and water spotting. Like I thought, we're going to have to pull out the big dog, but this is a base clear car. So at some point, this vehicle was repainted, but yeah, it's still a lot of work to do. So I'm going to pull out the rotary and compound and we're going to try and cut that all away. And then I'll finish it again. And hopefully we'll end up with a better result. Again, still not perfect, but much, much better. All that mineral and hard water spotting is all removed now. We still are left with some scratches, but under the time crunch that we're under, that might be the best that we're going to be able to get it. I think I'll take it. I think it's going to look great when it's all finished. And now we're going to go ahead and polish all the chrome pieces. And there are a lot on this car, but they make the final result that much better. And to wrap up the entire detail, we're going to use some tire shine on the tires and ceramic sealant on the paint. And this car is good to go. All right, finally done. This job is finished and we are going to head back to Cleveland, but I just wanted to thank you guys for making this all possible by watching these videos. We get to travel around the US, finding these awesome cars, meeting great people and making content that you hopefully enjoy. And on that note, thank you guys so much for watching. We'll see you next week.